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GOP watch: Newt on Obama

— Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested that an overly partisan, poorly articulated agenda had pulled President Obama down from the peak of public approval to the point where his party may lose its majority status in Congress.

Speaking at a pen-and-pad discussion with reporters last week, Gingrich, who led the 1994 "Republican revolution" in which the GOP regained the majority midway through President Clinton's first term, said that the spirit of change in which Obama was elected gave him the opportunity to "build out from that in a genuinely bipartisan way," risking the frustration of his party's leaders in the process.

Rather, he continued, Obama and congressional Democrats chose to embark on a strictly partisan agenda, setting a benchmark, he said, with "the act of passing a $787 billion [stimulus] bill with no elected official."